Who's Who?
by Gale Force
Summary: In which Patrick Macnee meets Mrs. Emma Peel: a tribute to Patrick Macnee


**Who's Who?**

**In which Patrick Macnee meets Emma Peel **

Patrick Macnee sat in his dressing room, having a spot of tea. He pulled a bottle of scotch from a drawer and added a dollop to the cup, then sipped and savored. "Ah."

He sat there with his eyes closed. It was only ten a.m., but it had already been a long day - he'd arrived at six in the morning. They'd been filming since seven. Today was supposed to have been outdoor scenes, but a violent thunderstorm was raging so they were filming all of the transmigration scenes instead.

A smile played around Macnee's lips. Transmigration indeed. The plots their writers came up with. Of course this was going to be an extremely fun episode to film - he and Diana Rigg were already laughing about it. Steed and Emma actually kissing on screen! Should give their fans quite a thrill.

A knock on his door. "Five minutes, Mr. Macnee."

Patrick finished off his tea, picked up a sticky bun and munched on it as he made his way back to the set. Arnold Diamond, who played Dr. Krelmar was off to one side, practicing his German accent, Patrick surmised, Freddie Jones who played Basil was practicing slouching his shoulders in front of a mirror, and Patricia Haines who played Lola had pulled her wig off and was looking at it disconsolately. "Have you ever seen such a mole's nest?" she asked Patrick as he came up to her.

"Well, you _are_ a Russian, my dear," Patrick told her unsympathetically. She popped her bubble gum at him.

Patrick walked over to 'the machine.' He shook his head. The designer had certainly spared no expense with this thing. There were light bulbs everywhere, which would go off when "Dr. Krelmar" flicked his various switches.

"Alright, Patrick."

Patrick stood to one side as the director blocked out the scene, where Freddie and Pat dragged his body over to the machine and placed it in the chair. Not _his_ body of course. Patrick didn't believe in doing his own fighting and he didn't believe in having his body dragged around, either.

Once his stunt man had finished all that dragging, however, Patrick took his place in the chair, eyes closed. He waited patiently while someone lowered the visor over his head, or the vi-zor as Arnold said with relish, and continued to sit patiently, eyes closed, while the others gave their lines.

"When I give the signal, you will start counting," Diamond/Krelmar said. He started flicking switches. There were no sounds, of course - thank goodness the designers hadn't tried to put that into the machine - but Patrick could "see" the lights flashing through his closed eyelids. "Now'," he heard Arnold say. Freddie started to count. Patrick waited patiently while Freddie got up to ten. Then, suddenly, he felt the ground literally shake and a great ball of lightning in his head. He felt as if he had been hit by a thunderbolt.

Consciousness returned with a jerk. Patrick lifted his head and looked around blurrily. His head hurt, his shoulders ached, there was something wrong with his arms, and there was something wrong with the scene in front of him. Diana was walking along the row of stilts, and on the other side of the row of stilts he could see Patricia, poised to strike. But there was no director, no light men, no lights, no cameraman - and there was no bloody camera!

Patrick was nothing if not a trooper. He knew the line and he said it. "Mrs. Peel! Look out!"

Diana ducked, and a stilt went sliding over her head and crashing through a window.

Patrick looked on incredulously as a man came into view. Not just any man...a man who looked just ...like... him. Not only a man who looked just like him but who was dressed exactly like him.

Diana looked up at the man, her face a study, and exclaimed "Steed!" Then her eyes widened in shock as the man raised his arm and brought the umbrella down viciously. There should have been a director there to yell cut, and then Action again for Diana to just fall over - but that wasn't the way it worked. Patrick watched in utter horror as the umbrella handle actually caught her across the head - he actually heard the _thwack_, and she crumpled bonelessly to the floor.

Patricia came up to him and slapped him. She actually slapped him! "Very foolish, Mr. Steed."

Patrick stared up at her. It was Patricia alright - Patricia with the awful blonde wig, on top of the beautiful face - but her eyes were very cold.

"I felt that. That was my face you were bruising." Those were _his _lines, but they were being said by the man who looked exactly like him, and then that man was in front of him, looking very big and ugly. My god, he had no idea he could look so menacing. Patricia looked nervous, but he just snapped his fingers at her. "Go and help the doctor." Then the man turned and looked down at him.

Patrick stared up at him. He was looking into a mirror and the doppelganger had walked out of it.

"I admire your tailor, old man. Very good taste."

Patrick gaped at him. They were the right lines...and the man in front of him certainly looked like him...and he hadn't studied Freddie Jones' lines and what the hell was he supposed to say? The trooper came to the fore once more.

"More than I can say for yours." Then he leaned back quickly, and the man who looked like him did indeed whip that umbrella round very close to his face. " Uh, uh. _Your _face, remember."

The man with his face spun away.

Patrick's mouth felt as dry as the inside of a parrot's cage. The backs of his eyeballs hurt. But he wasn't drunk. He _wasn't _drunk. He'd had one tot of whiskey in his tea. _One_. This could not be happening. Patrick turned to look behind him...and caught his eyes in the mirror there. His eyes, looking out of Freddie Jones' face.

Was he having some kind of bizarre homosexual fantasy? No, not possible. In twenty years of walking on stage in the presence of the handsomest of men and the most beautiful of women, it was only the women who had ever caused any stirrings in him. And if he _were _having a homosexual fantasy it would not be his fantasy to exist in the body of Freddie Jones, and that was bloody certain.

Vaguely he became aware of voices and noises from the next room. The room with the Machine in it. He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to picture it in his mind - how they'd been supposed to film it. The three of them...Arnold, Freddie and Patricia...Krelmar, Steed and Lola, had Diana...Emma Peel - in the chair, and Patricia had taken her chair and they had lowered those damn vi-zor and Arnold was flicking the switches and the lights would be flashing ridiculously.

Diana would open her eyes. But was it Diana? The man who was supposed to be Arnold Diamond but who must really have been Dr. Krelmar would turn off the machine...click, click, would go those damn switches...while he ...Basil/Steed ...slipped back the bonds and freed the woman's arms.

And it should be him, him who would lean forward and say, "You okay?" and be there while Diana went "'Mmmmm," and leaned forward and kissed him! and then say, incredibly, "Great, baby." Basil/Steed would said fatuously, "That's my Lola." She would pushed him away and walked over to where Emma/Lola was now sitting and say "What do we do with...me?"

"What's good for the goose is good for the ...help me, Doctor."

And, indeed, within a very few minutes the two men appeared, carrying Patricia Haines' body over to the post to which they had chained Patrick. He felt them unchaining one of his hands but he was absolutely in no position to do anything about it even if Lola/Emma had not been standing there with a gun in her hand as they did it. And in any even he couldn't take his eyes off Diana. Lola/Emma. She was so beautiful. She looked exactly like Diana!

Was he really looking at the real Emma Peel? The real Emma Peel who was now inhabited by a vicious enemy agent. She didn't take her eyes off him, but the expression in those eyes, the smug smile...that was not, could not be Diana looking at him.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Patrick murmured, but they ignored him.

We make a very handsome couple," Lola said, gazing at them.

"Come on, lover, we've got a full program ahead." Steed/Basil brushed past her briskly and bent down to stare at Patrick. " If you shout, don't count on anyone hearing you."

"Uh, uh," Emma/Lola said. She turned back and plucked the package of gum from Lola/Emma's pocket, and flourished it at Steed/Basil. "Old habits die hard."

Patrick felt the chains move...Emma must have regained consciousness.

"Steed! That woman! That's not me!"

Patrick swore inwardly, but he had to do it. He turned his head and said at his most insouciant, "Save your breath, Mrs. Peel. That's not me, either."

**Act Two **

The two double agents with their faces...their bodies...smiled at them, and then walked out of the building.

Silence. Dr. Kelmar came for a second to stare at them, and then there was a knock at the back door. "You're not leaving us," Emma called to him. Kelmar turned and smiled at her. "You will see me again, Mrs. Peel. Sooner or later."

Patrick sat in silence, and Mrs. Peel didn't speak either . All of a sudden they began to hear noises emanating from the other room - the sound of machinery being dismantled, probably by a couple of men who had come especially for the purpose. It was bloody unfair, Patrick thought. There was no reason for that machine to moved - he hadn't understood it when he'd first read the script and he didn't understand it now. It had just been done to provide the show with an extra ten minutes while he and Mrs. Peel had tried to find out where Dr. Kelmar was.

The men went out with the machine, and Dr. Kelmar followed them without another glance at the two captives.

They sat for a long few seconds in silence. Patrick desperately tried to get some saliva into his mouth, and then said, "They've gone."

"Why did they leave you behind?"

Had dialog been written for Freddie and Patricia at this point in the script? Well, if they had any dialog he didn't know what it was. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to bloody do to get out of this and back where he belonged?

"They...they couldn't take me along, Mrs. Peel. I am John Steed."

"You!" her scorn would have cut him to the quick if he hadn't known he looked like a fortyish-odd man with graying temples and a bushy mustache.

"That machine you saw them dismantling. It did something to us. They've switched our psyches. We are in their bodies, and they are in ours."

"Don't be ridiculous. You're trying to gaslight me."

"Gaslight?"

"_Gaslight_. Charles Boyer. Ingrid Bergman."

"Oh, yes, your movies. But I assure you..."

"Don't even talk to me, please. I'm trying to think."

Patrick was quite pleased to just sit there and say nothing. His head was still pounding, and perhaps if he just went to sleep for a few minutes he'd wake up and all this would turn out to be some crazy dream.

But what if it wasn't a dream? What if he was really here, in ..._Avengers _land. Whether it had really happened or he'd gone round the twist and only thought it happened...what if he was really here, in Avenger land? He was in deep kimshi, that was what!

He felt rather than saw her moving behind him, looking this way and that, trying to find a way out. Still she was ignoring him. The silence was now starting to get on his nerves. Was that really Emma Peel behind him? A woman as strong and self-confident and as intelligent as the woman Diana played? God, if only it weren't for that horrible wig...

Patrick tried to force some saliva into his mouth and said, "So you imagine I'm part of some fiendish plot, Mrs. Peel."

"I know Steed." Patricia ...no, he'd better think of her as Emma, said. Her voice was pitched differently but her style of delivery was all Diana Rigg's. "And you are _not_ he." And she turned to look at him and saw her face in the mirror so conveniently placed. Her eyes took in her own face as well as Freddie's face.

"And to quote, or nearly, you are not she, either. Transmigration, interchange, switch, swap, call it what you will."

She turned her head away. "No," she said definitely, " It's some trick."

"Well, I'll say one thing. You've certainly retained your stubborn streak."

She didn't respond.

How to convince her that he was...Steed? Hell, how to convince her that he was an actor named Patrick Macnee and didn't belong here at all? What had been Freddie's lines at this point? He'd glanced over the entire script very briefly, but it wasn't his job to learn everybody's lines, just the people whom he was doing scenes with. What was Freddie supposed to say at this point? Suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, it came to him.

"Do you remember that drive from Mont Blanc to Dijon?"

"Turn right, you said."

"And you turned left."

"Well if I hadn't..."

"We'd have missed that delightful chateau...gourmet's paradise."

"Except for the claret."

"The chablis, Mrs. Peel. It was chablis."

Emma turned and looked at him via the mirror again. Well, that bit of dialog had gone over well; he wondered how he'd known it. But she was still looking at him skeptically.

"You still doubtful?" Patrick said.

Patricia smiled what in Diana would have been her inimitable smile. "Well, I know who _I_ am. And if you are Steed, I wonder what _we_ are up to."

We're busy killing a helluva lot of people, Patrick said to himself. Jesus, they're probably dying even as we're sitting here. And then Patrick blinked a few times as he ran through his mind the scenes that had been written for him and Diana while their bodies were supposed to be inhabited by Basil and Lola.

"We've got to get out of here!" he almost shouted.

"I do so agree."

Patrick cast his mind back, not to his old World War II days but what he'd done time and time again in four years of the _Avengers_. "I can ease my wrist out of this handcuff," he said at last. "Old magician's trick." Emma held the chain up to make it easier for him. He tried to pull his wrist out, murmuring, while his face set in pain, "Merely a question of contracting the wrist."

But all he was doing was rubbing his wrist raw.

"Mind if I have a go?" came Emma's voice.

"Do."

Right. Let's see what _she _could do without a stuntwoman and a specially weakened pole!

He heard her kick away the stool and adjust her feet. "Spot of kung fu might do the trick." She said. Then there was nothing but silence for a couple of seconds, and then he heard her shout, "Hai" and all of a sudden there was a crunching noise and a two inch section of the pole around which they were chained actually hit him in the back of the ankle.

"Going down," said Emma Peel, and they both knelt down in unison, slipped the chains through the jagged hole and stood up once again.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Peel." Patrick told her. He looked down at her feet. She was shod in high-heels. What was this - every woman spy wore steel-reinforced high-heeled shoes?

"There are some tools over there." said Emma, nodding towards a work desk some feet away. They headed over in that direction. Patrick saw a long, stiff wire. Now, that could be a picklock. that he could do. He grinned at Emma.

"Mrs. Peel, I think we have our key. But it will be easier face to face."

She nodded at him. Then turned, and held up her hands. Good god...she actually expected him to...automatically, he held up his hands and they grasped hers.

"One, two." he said. He felt the full pressure of her back against his as he leaned over, pulling her up, and she actually flipped over his shoulders and landed in front of her, bouncing in her landing like a gymnast completing a vault on a pommel horse.

Thank god he was looking into the face of Patricia Haines and not Diana Rigg. Not that he didn't find Patricia unattractive - except for that awful wig - but if it had been Diana's face in front of him and the knowledge that he was actually looking at Emma Peel... he felt a tug on his hands as Emma reached for the piece of wire and handed it to him.

Well, okay, Patrick, pick the lock, he told himself. Jesus Christ, he was supposed to be a top notch agent himself - he had to show her he had some skills.

Patrick leaned over her wrist, probing the handcuff lock with the piece of wire.

"This is going to be a challenge, Steed," she said.

"Nonsense." Patrick felt it necessary to defend his skills. "I pick a lock every day of the week."

"I didn't mean that. I meant, we're handicapped. First thing we've got to do is get our own bodies back."

"True. But unfortunately, when the doctor left, he took his fiendish machine with him." Patrick didn't resist as Emma took the picklock out of his hand and went to work on the lock on her own. She spoke as she worked.

"True, and unfortunately, we've got to find him. And the only way to find him is to find the other me."

Patrick nodded. He knew his lines for this. What corny dialog they had written for this scene. But he had to say it.

"Yes. If you were you, where would you head?"

"Back to my apartment."

And with that she handed him the last of the chains and headed for the door. Patrick glared at the chain incredulously. Then shrugged.

"Bright girl."

He followed her to the door, then paused and gestured.

"After you."

She stared at him and nodded. "That's better."

Patrick glanced at her, puzzled. Just what did she ...oh, yes, as Basil inhabiting his body he'd walked out of a door in front of her - something he - that was to say, Steed - never did. And he'd called her Emma. And all she'd gotten was a puzzled look on her face. Why hadn't she realized right then and there that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark? And when 'he'd' driven her back to the stilt shop in a car that was not his Bentley - hadn't that given rise to some suspicion? Not for their tv selves of course but if this was the 'real world' and she was a 'real' secret agent, shouldn't that have occurred to her?

The Bentley was still outside the building. Of course. It took a special knack to start it and the fellow Basil hadn't known how to do it.

True enough, Emma climbed into the passenger's seat and looked at him searchingly.

"I suppose you know how to start her."

"Still don't believe I'm me, Mrs. Peel?" said Patrick, even while at that very moment he was wracking his brain to remember how to start it. On the show, the damn thing didn't run, he just went through the motions and a couple of prop men pushed it out of the frame. Nevertheless, he'd just go through the motions and see what happened. What choice did he have?

He started the car with a flourish, released the brake, and to his utter shock and Emma's fond "You're you," he drove off.

**ACT Three**

Well, he'd got the Bentley going. That was all very well and proper but now where the hell was he supposed to drive to? Steed's apartment didn't exist except on a sound stage...where did he live anyway...3 Stable Mews he seemed to remember...they had written it out once in the show's 'Bible'...and he'd better be able to find it or else Mrs. Peel would begin to think that he was an impostor after all.

As he drove, Patrick began to give serious thought to the fact that he was going insane. For he seemed to know exactly where he was going - what turns to take, even downshifting in advance of the turns as if knowing when they were coming up.

But more than that, what was he to do. In the script, he and Emma Peel drove up to his apartment, where they were spotted by bad Basil and arrested by Tulip and brought to Major Bs office, thus leaving the field free for bad Basil and lethal Lola to kill about thirteen men in cold blood. Surely if he used a bit more circumspection in approaching the house they could get in, catch the villains by surprise, and end it before any of that massacre took place.

But what if that was the wrong thing to do? What if he had to play this entire script out, do everything just like it was in the script so that at the end of it he'd regain his mind? That was probably the more likely scenario. He hoped.

But what if he was wrong? What if they did everything as had happened in the script? This time it wasn't a stuntman doing his work for him, or even a real trained agent doing the work. It was him. An actor. Whew. An actor playing the role of his life. Patrick swallowed hard. He wished he could stop the Bentley so that he could throw up, but instead kept on driving to the rear of the building which he somehow knew housed his apartment. He pulled on the emergency brake.

Facing Emma, knowing that eyes above were looking at them, he said, "They could be at my place."

"How will you find out?" she asked.

What a silly question that was. Who'd written that inane line?

"Soon check up. There's a call box round the corner."

Patrick got out of the Bentley, trotted round the corner, and lo and behold there _was _a call box. He fished some coins out of his pocket and shoved them into the slot. Now, what was his phone number? Slowly he closed his eyes and lowered his head against the call-box wall..once, twice...the numbers popped into his head and he dialed them. He let the phone ring several times.

When he returned to the Bentley Mrs. Peel had gotten out and was looking up and down the street. "No answer," he told her. "Let's go in."

The back door to the building was locked, and he had no key of course, but he punched in the security code which let them in. He could feel Mrs. Peel relax still more beside him - only he...that was to say, John Steed, would know that security code.

They took the stairs up to the fifth floor, slowly. Patrick opened the door, peered out. My, my, and his apartment occupied this entire floor? He went to the door of his apartment and cocked his head. What was he listening for, he wondered? He could hear nothing.

Feeling like a traitor, he told Mrs. Peel, "All clear." He reached up to press the button on the top of the door, and it swung open. Feeling like even more of a traitor, he gestured for Emma to enter. What if this is where the script changed? What if they had already decided to take up permanent residence and started firing on sight?

But they came in quietly, all the way into the apartment, and just as quietly bad Basil and lethal Lola came up behind them. Basil was holding a gun.

"We have trespassers." he said coldly.

"Burglars." agreed the woman in Mrs. Peel's body.

"And it is the Englishman's inviolable right to defend his home."

Patrick forced himself to speak steadily. "You know, you won't use that."

"Oh?" said Basil with exaggerated surprise.

"And fill _yourself _full of holes?"

Before Basil could answer Tulip kicked in the door. Why did he have to kick it down, some small part of Patrick's psyche wanted to know. But Tulip entered followed by four men in white trench coats.

"All right, get them." barked Tulip, gesturing towards the unfamiliar agents. "You all right, Steed?"

Patrick started to answer automatically, "Well, I'm..." but stopped when Basil shot him a dirty look.

_I'm_ fine." said Basil, glaring at Patrick. Then he turned back to Tulip. "Thanks."

"We'll take care of them." assured Tulip.

Mrs. Peel, ever poised, lifted up her arm, and Patrick followed suit. He flinched only slightly as the cold metal of the handcuff ratcheted around his wrist.

Oh, for quick cuts in real life, Patrick thought to himself as he and Mrs. Peel were driven toward HQ. This interminable waiting in the car as they drove along, stared at with impassive faces by four men wearing trench coats, it was enough to drive him mad if he weren't mad already. And it would make horrible viewing for the watchers at home. Would they be watching this scene, he wondered? Or would they get impatient and start changing channels?

The car ride finished, they were brought up in an elevator to the office of Major B, and shoved down onto a rather comfortable white leather sofa. Major B entered. He stared at them.

Oh, for quick cuts, Patrick yearned again. None of this dialog had been written...what was he supposed to say? Well, he'd sit quiet. Mrs. Peel was the professional - let her deal with him!

"What are your names?" Major B asked.

Patrick blinked. "John Steed."

"Emma Peel."

Major B barked with laughter. "What the hell are you playing at?"

"It's really us, Major," said Emma Peel. "The Russians...it must have been the Russians - have perfected a thought transfer device. They've used it on us. Swapped our psyches. Ask us any questions you like - we can prove who we are."

"For the last time, what are your names? The truth, now."

Patrick rubbed his cheek. "John Steed."

Emma responded in her own imitable style. God Patricia had Diana's shtick down well. Except...it wasn't a shtick. "Mrs. Peel. Emma Peel."

"Sir, madam."

Major B seemed to have reached the end of his patience very quickly.

"As enemy agents I respect your reticence in disclosing your identities. But what can be the purpose of this ridiculous charade? Oh, come along now, be reasonable. All this nonsense about swapping psyches, really. I know Steed. Played cricket with him, at Lords."

"The last match, you dropped two easy catches." Patrick pointed out.

Major B looked disconcerted. What a good actor Campbell Singer was. "Well, you've got it all at your fingertips. Every minute detail. And I expect you, madam, could tell me the name of my barber."

"I might, except you're wearing a toupee."

Campbell flushed and brought a hand up to his head very briefly. "Yes, they've got you briefed, haven't they? Very well briefed. What a cunning lot you are. Well, it won't help you. I'm head of intelligence. Do you take me for a perfect idiot?"

"No one's perfect."

Patrick had to bite his lip. God, Patricia had Diana's delivery spot on. Or the real Emma Peel had Diana's delivery spot on. Or something.

Major B pressed a button on his desk, and then walked toward the door. Tulip opened it briskly. "Major."

"We'll talk outside." said Major B, and the two men exited the room.

Patrick sighed. "One thing is certain. They don't believe us." Still less would anyone believe that he wasn't Basil or John Steed but just a poor unfortunate actor who apparently was having a nervous breakdown. Patrick got up, pulling Emma with him.

"Well, let's be fair." Emma said, fairly. "Would you?"

"Well, unless we can get rid of these, and quick," and he held up their handcuffed arms, "our floral network will end as a barren garden."

He used to have a solid gold toothpick. At least Steed had had one. What episode had that been in? Not that that would do any good. In the script it had worked but in real life solid gold was too soft and a toothpick would bend like butter.

Patrick followed as Emma led the way to the windows and they looked down at the streets below. "No other way out." Emma said.

But Freddie and Patricia had escaped, Patrick remembered. How had they done it? Oh, of course. "I know, this might help." Patrick said. He hurried to B's desk and pressed a button and a drawer slid open. So much nicer than the recalcitrant prop in the real desk on the set.

Patrick picked up the gun and twirled it...and to his surprise twirled it expertly. "Standard equipment." he told Emma. "For an emergency."

"And this is definitely an emergency."

The door suddenly opened and Major B, foolish man, stood half inside the door looking out at Tulip. "Alright Tulip, the moment you hear from Poppy let me know." Emma and Patrick hurried up behind him as he closed the door and turned to see the white leather couch empty of its occupants. Before he could react Patrick had hit him over the head with the butt of the gun.

Patrick stared down at his victim, appalled. He hadn't killed the poor man, had he? But Emma had no such qualms and had already pulled him down and began hunting for the key in Major B's coat pocket. Soon they had themselves unlocked and were walking calmly through the deserted corridors of Headquarters, into the lift and down to the ground floor. Once out on the street Mrs. Peel calmly hailed a taxi and gave the driver his address.

As the taxi driver drove towards 3 Stable Mews in the unsettling way of cabbies everywhere, Patrick closed his eyes and tried to get a grip. But all he could see were images of him and Diana, playing the scenes that had been written for them. Not the killing scenes but the love scenes...the kisses...the fondling...the other scenes that the audience were supposed to have believed were going on in the bedroom and probably were in this strange reality. Scenes that he had been looking forward to all week and which he was not getting to enjoy. Patrick raised a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose and could not subdue a soft moan of anguish.

"Steed," asked Emma, concernedly. "Are you alright?"

Patrick turned to look at her. Even staring out of Patricia Haines' face he saw the concern of Diana...of Emma Peel. He forced a smile. "Of course."

I wonder, Patrick thought as he sat back, his shoulder warm against hers, their knees but a couple of inches apart, what Steed and Mrs. Peel's relationship _is_ really like? Does it follow the plot of all of our stories...

"We're here." Emma interrupted his musings.

Patrick paid the driver and then they headed round to the back of the building, and in very carefully, very quietly, through the back door of his apartment. He knew what he was going to find, of course, and he knew the reaction Freddie was supposed to give.

He walked in and plucked the horrid striped towel off the bar and looked at it...moved further into the room and saw real bottles of wine nestling together on one of his overstuffed chairs. Incredibly, he felt actual anger at the mess the two impostor agents had made of his pristine home.

"Been having a ball." said Emma behind him.

Patrick moved over to the chair and picked up one of the bottles. "The last of my '47. And not even chilled." He tossed the bottle back on the chair.

"Now Steed, don't get irate."

"_Irate_?!" Patrick turned to her, and surprisingly he _did _felt irate. His eye caught the prop box of cigars and he moved over to them and the ashtray beside it. "My cigars. Been smoking my cigars! And he's bitten..._bitten _the end off." He held out one of the stubs to Emma. "Bitten."

Emma was having a hard time containing her amusement, and Patrick thought that that was a joy to see. Even coming out of the wrong face it was a joy to see. "Now, calm down." she told him soothingly.

"What ...what sort of a fiend are we dealing with?" Patrick asked her. "The man who would bite the end off a cigar is capable of anything."

Oh, and then there was that other comedy relief. Best go through with it. He brushed past her, saying, "My best bowler's still here. That's one thing." He brushed off the bowler, placed it on his head, and tapped it. It slipped down over his eyes. He heard a soft giggle from Emma. Feigning irritation, Patrick stalked away.

Emma moved over to the side of the room, and saw a small metal container half full of flowers. She picked it up and turned towards him, her face ashen. "Steed."

Patrick had gone toward his utility room, and he had seen what was in there, and when he turned to look at Mrs. Peel his face was just as ashen as hers and he felt sick to his stomach. How many dead men were in there? Dead men - not actors playing corpses but real, dead men. Men whose last sight had been of a man and woman they'd trusted implicitly pointing a gun at them. He had to swallow down the bile in his throat. His voice was very tight as he said, "I know." and nodded toward the carnage.

This was his fault. Their deaths were on his head. He should have done something about this earlier - caught Basil and Lola earlier, driven them out to Krelmar's house and ended this lunacy once and for all. But it hadn't been in the script...but then, he'd never really followed the script, did he? Ad-Liebling all the time, playing off Diana...and producers - they never followed scripts - if they did Hamlet would always be fat, the fat prince of Denmark...but...the show must go on.

"They've got half the network." Patrick choked.

"Call the major," Emma said decisively.

Patrick swallowed down more bile. "Useless, he knows my voice. He wouldn't believe...me."

"Then we've got to locate Krelmar."

"And ourselves." Patrick added.

"I've a shrewd idea where 'they' are." Emma commented. She picked up the phone and dialed. It rang twice, and then over the receiver Patrick thrilled to hear Diana's voice as she said, "Emma Peel."

"It's me." Emma whispered at him.

Patrick knew that. He could hear Diana's voice, with the common accent of Lola saying, "Hello. Hullooo?" and then she hung up.

Emma stared at the flowers in the silver arranging bowl. "Who is next on their list?"

How in hell was he supposed to know that? Was there some kind of arcane herbological lore he was supposed to know at this point? But he said, "I'd say, Bluebell."

"Can you reach him?"

"I doubt if he'll listen, but I can try." Patrick took up the phone. He had no idea what number to dial, and no thoughts came to him. He dialed his own number, the number of his flat, and it rang busily. Suddenly he thought in horror...what if someone who calls himself Patrick Macnee answers the phone? What if he sounds exactly like me. I'll go screaming up the walls. Fortunately, the phone rang and rang. "No reply." He put the phone down and said, "We'd better head for your apartment. Come on."

He held the front door open for her and Mrs. Peel went out into the corridor and stopped dead, and Patrick stopped beside her. Tulip was standing in the hallway. How could he have forgotten that Tulip would be there? "Tulip, old plant," he said, feebly. And Tulip started reaching for a gun and Patrick remembered that now Tulip had orders to shoot to kill. Acting faster than he would have believed possible Patrick grabbed Mrs. Peel and flung her back into the safety of the apartment, locking the door behind him.

Mrs. Peel rebounded off the strategically placed chair in front of the door and looked at Patrick with an expression of unspoken thanks on her face. "Slight misunderstanding." he told her. "Come on!"

As they ran out the back way, they heard shots - Tulip shooting out the lock on the door. They jolted to a halt as they found that someone had locked the security door that led to the outside. It was not Patrick but Emma who automatically raised her foot and kicked the door open. They rounded the corner of the building and incredibly Tulip was behind them. They clambered into the Bentley and roared off and Emma told Patrick that Tulip had climbed in to his car and was gaining fast.

Once again Patrick seemed to know, subconsciously, what he was doing. And the beautiful old Bentley that never had to do more than roll into and out of shots was purring like a muted lion and rocketing down the road like nobody's business. Patrick put the pedal to the medal and turned down road after road, with Tulip's car getting increasingly far behind. Until finally he turned off into a culvert and Tulip's car roared past without hesitation.

Although they hadn't been doing anything more than riding in the car, both Patrick and Emma let out their breaths and felt as if they'd been running a marathon.

"Lost him." Emma commented.

**ACT Four**

"Well," said Patrick, " There's no point in heading for your place. They'll have men posted there."

Emma nodded. "It's the doctor we want. If he's got the machine our other halves will head for him sooner or later."

Patrick stared at her intently. "Unless they favor the present arrangement."

Emma nodded and then suddenly her eyes widened as the full impact sank in. "Unless they what?"

Patrick smiled wanly. "Well, think of the advantages."

Emma didn't have to think long. "Then they'll destroy the machine as soon as possible!"

And I'll be trapped in Freddie Jones' body for the rest of my life? Patrick pounded a fist into the palm of his hand. "We've got to find Krelmar. And quickly."

"I doubt if he's in the phone book," Emma pointed out in her charming way.

Patrick settled down to restart the Bentley. "We'd better find out." Suddenly, before he could move, a blazing ball of pain suddenly exploded in his forehead. He clutched at his head with both hands, trying to keep it from exploding into fragments.

"What's wrong?" Emma demanded.

Patrick could barely speak. "I don't know. Headache. Feels like migraine."

"That's not like you."

Patrick squeezed his hands together and somehow molded his skull back into his proper shape. The sharp pain faded into dullness as he glanced up at her. "I don't happen to be me, remember?" Wasn't there - he'd put some pills in his pocket, in what seemed like an eternity ago. He reached into his breast pocket and brought out a vial of pills. How stupid! How stupid of him to have forgotten this.

"Dr. V. Krelmar." he read aloud.

Emma snatched it out of his hand. "The Manor House, Hambledon."

Quickly she opened the bottle and gave him one of the pills, which he swallowed without benefit of water.

As he drove toward Hambledon, Patrick thought furiously. Something was happening. He was beginning to lose his grip on the script, and starting to say the lines from his subconscious or something. He was starting to forget what was supposed to be happening. That couldn't be right. Was he being subsumed into this role now...losing not only his memory but his very consciousness, his soul? The palms of his hands were cold and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Emma, noticing this, brought out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. He directed a thankful smile at her.

What was going to next. Think, Patrick, think! They'd get to the Manor House, they'd walk in, the machine would be there. And then they'd see Diana...no...Emma Peel's body drive up in a car and get out and she would run into the building...yes, yes, that was it. Foolish of him to be so frightened - that sudden attack of migraine had just driven the lines out of his head for a few minutes. That was all.

They walked into the building, cautiously. No sign of Dr. Krelmar or the two men who had dismantled the machine.

They walked into a very sophisticatedly set up room, with lots of equipment around the sides of it, and the transmigration machine in pride of place. "There it is," commented Emma.

"All in one piece," Patrick said, relieved. He stared at the machine in awe. The machine on the set at Pineview had been makeshift, a prop, with colored lights and all that, but somehow _this _machine seemed solider, more real, more capable of actually ripping open someone's head socially and taking out their souls.

"How's it work?"

"How indeed." said Patrick, coldly. He'd been unconscious when the thing had been used on him, after all. How did she expect him to know that?

The sound of a car engine caused them both to turn their heads and they scurried to a far window and peered out. Patrick's heart lurched as he saw the woman whom he knew as Diana Rigg, dressed in the 'Emmapeeler' catsuit that she was making so famous, jump out of a car and come running toward the building. God she was beautiful. But evil inside, unless he could do something about it.

"How nice to see you," Patrick murmured to the woman in Patricia's body.

"Wonder what I'm doing here," Emma said with a touch of humor.

Patrick matched her. "Whatever the reasons, you're very obliging."

Patrick followed behind Emma as she headed for the door to the room. This was her business now. Emma opened the door fully and they stood behind it. The lethal Lola walked in all unsuspecting. Emma pushed the door to and brought a karate chop down on the neck of her unsuspecting body snatcher with a certain elan.

Patrick stared down at Diana's unmoving body. But there was no time to try to think things through. "Time you were yourself again." he commented. Emma and he lifted her body and placed her in the chair. Patrick took her face gently between his hands and held it steady while Emma lowered the visor. Than Emma got into the other chair, and lowered her visor.

Patrick stood staring at the machine. Switches, switches. Well, they were all flicked down. He flicked them all up. A powerful humming noise came from the machine and lights began to skitter from one side to the other, but he had no earthly idea how to proceed.

"Well?" Emma demanded anxiously.

Patrick felt like sinking his hands into his hair and pulling that hair out by the roots. He couldn't think. "I'll check next door and see if there's some instructions," he told her.

This was it, he said to himself as he forced himself to enter the next room and walk straight to the desk there. He knew that Dr. Krelmar was in the room, he knew that Krelmar was going to knock him out with the butt of a gun. Please god he wouldn't hit too hard - his head had already taken enough knocks as it was.

So intent was Patrick in looking at the papers on the desk and waiting for the blow that he didn't even feel it when it came.

How long was he out before he regained consciousness? No way of knowing. It was entirely unfair. He felt like he had the mother of all hangovers and yet he hadn't even had a drink in what seemed like an eternity. Why was he lying on the floor in this room?

Patrick got up very, very slowly. He brought the bottle of pills out of his pocket and with reckless abandon took three of them. Then he very slowly entered the room with the machine.

Emma Peel...it had to be the real Emma Peel, stood before him. She was smiling with Diana's incandescent smile and she was poised and confident and beautiful as he gazed at her. "It's all right, it's me." she told him, as if speaking to a spooked horse. "I got Krelmar to switch me back."

"Oh, yes?" Patrick said. He inched forward. He didn't want to have to play this scene. But he had to. If his life depended on him playing all the scenes in this script, than play them he must.

"Oh now look, Steed, it's really me." Emma Peel told him, holding out her hands placatingly. Was he really moving forward that menacingly? "No, Steed, don't force me to..."

"Force you to what?" he asked, and brought up his hand in a karate chop.

She blocked it effortlessly, and he felt the smooth power of her muscles as she twisted his arm up behind him.

"And if you want further proof..." she said, and then she bent down to whisper in his ear...oh god, what was wrong with his ears. He couldn't hear what she was saying! But she released him and he straightened up and said, "Oh, Mrs. Peel," just as he'd seen Freddie rehearse it one day.

She grinned at him impishly.

"Well, at least I'm back to normal."

Patrick stared at her. "Yes, but what about me?"

She shook her head sorrowfully. Well, at least she didn't find Freddie Jones attractive either!

Patrick licked his lips. "You're going to have to bring ...me...here."

Emma nodded.

Patrick reached for her arm as she started to turn away, and she looked into his eyes. Did he see his...Patrick's...eyes staring out at her from this face? "Be careful, Mrs. Peel," Patrick said. She grinned at him, and that grin filled him with confidence. She could handle it.

While he was waiting for her to return, Patrick scouted around. He found where she'd stashed the unconscious, trussed up form of Dr. Krelmar. He found a stash of liquor and he treated himself to a much needed tot.

Then he checked his watch. Soon, now, Tulip would be rolling up in his car, and he had a scene to play for Tulip. What was it? Oh, yes. Patrick glanced over at the still form of Lola...the real Lola, small and still and safely strapped to her chair. He approached her and lifted up the visor. She was beginning to regain consciousness.

She blinked up at him, and he smiled at her.

"How's it feel to be back home?"

Lola stared at him incredulously, as she realized that she was not looking at Basil but Steed - or who should have been Steed, in Basil's body. Her face convulsed in fury and she pulled desperately at the restraining straps.

"Don't hurt yourself, my dear." Patrick told her, with a certain sense of self-satisfaction. "I must say I don't care for that platinum blonde look of yours. Not to my taste. Nor is your perfume.."

Lola's foot lashed out and caught him just below the groin. Patrick bounced away, swearing, and came to rest with both hands on the wheeled divan. "That hurt _him _more than it did me." he told her viciously.

At that precise second Tulip slammed open the door and bustled through the doorway, waving his gun. Patrick ducked down behind the divan and shoved it forward desperately. He caught Tulip unawares, and by spinning the divan forced the other man to run headfirst into a wall, where he stopped, turned, and sank down in a heap back on the divan.

Hah! Hah! He'd knocked out a dangerous adversary without half trying! Who needed a stuntman then, eh? "Does that solve your problem?" he asked the unconscious form of Tulip.

He heard the sound of Emma's car and quickly rolled the unconscious form of Tulip out of sight. Then he followed Emma's example and hid behind the door that led into the machine room. But he left the door only slightly ajar.

He could hear voices from the next room...Diana's and ...his, saying something. Then, all of a sudden, the door smashed open and hit him in the nose. He slammed it shut and grabbed at his nose as he saw Diana trading karate chops with the bad Basil.

"Look out for that machine!" he called suddenly as their bodies went careening toward it. He'd have to help her, but how. Patrick danced around them, seeking an opening, when suddenly Basil turned towards him with a swinging fist.

"Look out Basil!" came Lola's voice.

Patrick's view was entirely taken up by the viciously drawn back lips and teeth of his adversary, so he didn't see Mrs. Peel turn and spin the visor around to hide Lola's face.

A fist caught him in the belly, another glanced off his chin as he desperately tried to fight back. Why was Mrs. Peel just strolling around the sidelines, watching them? Couldn't she that this lunatic was bent on killing him?

Finally Mrs. Peel took a hand. Or rather, arm. As Basil brought back his right arm to punch him once more, Emma grabbed it and held it. "Thank you," Patrick told her, and swung as hard as he could.

The pain he felt in his knuckles was as nothing compared to the pain he felt at looking down at his unconscious body.

The sound of yet another car engine smote their ears - they both knew who it must be. Patrick locked the door and they dragged his body over and up into the machine. Then Patrick went over, released Lola from the visor, and lifted her out of the chair and onto his shoulder. "Can you work it?" he asked Emma Peel as she started flicking switches with an air of authority.

"I think so." she told him.

Patrick smiled at her. The rush of affection he felt at that moment for her - for the real Emma Peel, was almost unbearable. Of course she could. When Krelmar had switched her back she'd probably watching every move, and of course _she'd_ only have to see it once.

Patrick dumped Lola's body unceremoniously on top of Krelmar's, then returned and sat down in his chair. Emma strapped him in, and lowered the visor.

"Right. Start counting... now."

Patrick started counting. This was it. This was _it_. He'd end up in his own body now, and he'd end up with Mrs. Peel, and even if he was trapped in this bizarre world he would be...safe.

"One, two, three, four..." as he counted he began to feel heat on the top of his head, a sudden, vacuumy feeling inside his brain as if his entire soul were being sucked out of him...and then he heard himself saying "Nine, ten, eleven," an he opened his eyes.

Diana Rigg was standing in front of him, an expression of concern on her face. Above her were the blazing hot klieg lights, behind her he saw the extras in their white trench coats and beyond them he saw the cameras and the klieg lights and the director.

He was back. He was back in the real world.

"Got to finish the scene," Patrick told himself, as he stood up, turned, and lifted the red and blue dice off the machine and tossed them up and down playfully. Diana followed him, playing up to the thought that something had gone wrong.

"Steed, Mrs. Peel. Not too late?" demanded Major B.

"Almost too early." Patrick said, and grinned at Diana. And she grinned back.

"Cut, print." yelled the director.

Patrick was on auto pilot as they finished the scene. Campbell Singer as Major B said, "Cunning pair, these two. Tried to pretend they were you." And he and Diana exchanged glances and then turned back to him, saying, "Us." and once again the director said, "Cut, print."

"Alright, everybody," he said seconds later. "That's enough for today. See you all for final shots tomorrow."

Patrick and Diana winked at Freddie and Patricia and walked off the set. When they were alone in the hallway leading to their dressing rooms Diana turned to him. "Patrick, today was wonderful."

Patrick blinked at her.

"Those kisses we had...they almost made me wish I wasn't a happily married woman." And then she put a finger on his lips, and hurried on into her own dressing room.

Patrick gaped after her. Had they shot all of his kissing scenes _today_? _How _had they shot all of his kissing scenes today - when he hadn't been there to do any kissing???? _Who_ had been there - in _his _body, to do the kissing?

Patrick staggered into his dressing room, flopped into his chair, pinched the bridge of his nose and moaned softly. All that kissing...him and the delectable Diana Rigg...and what did he have to show for it? Nothing. A splitting headache without benefit of booze. All the kissing that had been going on all day long on both sides of...wherever...and he'd been involved in _none _of it. There was a hell...this was it.

Patrick sighed, reached into the drawer and took out his bottle of scotch. He took a swig straight out of the bottle. After all, he deserved _something_.


End file.
